"Hold on, I'll wake Arnoldsson and the electrical engineers."
Silence. Tom stared at the inanimate radio which gave off only the
whines and scratches of lightning and sun and stars, all far distant
from him. For all his senses could tell him, he was the last living
thing in the universe.
_Sure, call a conference_, Tom thought. _How much more work is there
to be done? About twenty-four hours, he said. Another day. And another
full night. Another night, this time with no heat. And maybe no oxygen,
either. The heaters must have been working tonight until I pushed them
up to full power. Something must have blown out. Maybe it's just a
broken wire. I could fix that if they tell me how. But if it's not ...
no heat tomorrow night, no heat at all._
Then Arnoldsson's voice floated up through the radio speaker: soft,
friendly, calm, soothing....
* * * * *
The next thing Tom knew he was putting on his helmet. Sunlight was
lancing through the tinted observation port and the ship was noticeably
warmer.
"What happened?" he mumbled through the dissolving haze of hypnosis.
"It's all right, Tom." Ruth's voice. "Dr. Arnoldsson put you under and
had you check the ship's wiring. Now he and Jason and the engineers
are figuring out what to do. They said it's nothing to worry about ...
they'll have everything figured out in a couple of hours."
"And I'm to work on the satellite until they're ready?"
"Yes."
"Don't call us, we'll call you."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"It's all right, Tom. Don't worry."
"Sure Ruth, I'm not worried." _That makes us both liars._
He worked mechanically, handling the unfamiliar machinery with the
engineers' knowledge through Arnoldsson's hypnotic communication.
_Just like the pictures they used to show of nuclear engineers handling
radioactive materials with remotely-controlled mechanical hands from
behind a concrete wall. I'm only a pair of hands, a couple of opposed
thumbs, a fortunate mutation of a self-conscious simian ... but, God,
why don't they call? She said it wasn't anything big. Just the wiring,
probably. Then why don't they call?_
He tried to work without thinking about anything, but he couldn't
force his mind into stillness.
_Even if I can fix the heaters, even if I don't freeze to death, I
might run out of oxygen. And how am I going to land the ship? The
takeoff was automatic, but even Jason and Arnoldsson can't make a pilot
out of me...._
"Tom?" Jason's voice.
"Yes!" He jerked to attention and floated free of the satellite.
"We've ... eh, checked what you told us about the ship's electrical
system while Arnoldsson had you under the hypnotic trance...."
"And?"
"Well ... it, eh, looks as though one of the batteries gave out. The
batteries feed all the ship's lights, heat, and electrical power ...
with one of them out, you don't have enough power to run the heaters."
"There's no way to fix it?"
"Not unless you cut out something else. And you need everything
else ... the radio, the controls, the oxygen pumps...."
"What about the lights? I don't need them, I've got the lamp on my suit
helmet."
"They don't take as much power as the heaters do. It wouldn't help at
all."
Tom twisted weightlessly and stared back at Earth. "Well just what the
hell am I supposed to _do_?"
"Don't get excited," Jason's voice grated in his earphones. "We've
calculated it all out. According to our figures, your suit will store
enough heat during the day to last the night...."
"I nearly froze to death last night and the ship was heated most of the
time!"
"It will get cold," Jason's voice answered calmly, "but you should be
able to make it. Your own body warmth will be stored by the suit's
insulation, and that will help somewhat. But you must not open the suit
all night, not even to take off your helmet."
"And the oxygen?"
"You can take all the replacement cylinders from the ship and keep
them at the satellite. The time you save by not having to go back and
forth to the ship for fresh oxygen will give you about an hour's extra
margin. You should be able to make it."
Tom nodded. "And of course I'm expected to work on the satellite right
through the night."
"It will help you keep your mind off the cold. If we see that you're
not going to make it--either because of the cold or the oxygen--we'll
warn you and you can return to the settlement."
"Suppose I have enough oxygen to just finish the satellite, but if I
do, I won't have enough to fly home. Will you warn me then?"
"Don't be dramatic."
"Go to hell."
"Dr. Arnoldsson said he could put you under," Jason continued
unemotionally, "but he thinks you might freeze once your conscious mind
went asleep."
"You've figured out all the details," Tom muttered. "All I have to do
is put your damned satellite together without freezing to death and
then fly 22,500 miles back home before my air runs out. Simple."
He glanced at the sun, still glaring bright even through his tinted
visor. It was nearly on the edge of the Earth-disk.
"All right," Tom said, "I'm going into the ship now for some pills;
it's nearly sunset."
* * * * *
Cold. Dark and so cold that numbers lost their meaning. Paralyzing
cold, seeping in through the suit while you worked, crawling up your
limbs until you could hardly move. The whole universe hung up in the
sky and looked down on the small cold figure of a man struggling
blindly with machinery he could not understand.
Dark. Dark and cold.
Ruth stayed on the radio as long as Jason would allow her, talking to
Tom, keeping the link with life and warmth. But finally Jason took
over, and the radio went silent.
_So don't talk_, Tom growled silently, _I can keep warm just by hating
you, Jason._
He worked through the frigid night, struggling ant-like with huge
pieces of equipment. Slowly he assembled the big parabolic mirror, the
sighting mechanism and the atomic convertor. With dreamy motions he
started connecting the intricate wiring systems.
And all the while he raged at himself: _Why? Why did it have to be this
way? Why me? Why did I agree to do this? I knew I'd never live through
it; why did I do it?_
He retraced the days of his life: the preparations for the flight, the
arguments with Jason over exploring the cities, his trek from Chicago
to the settlement, the aimless years after the radiation death of his
two boys and Marjorie, his wife.
Marjorie and the boys, lying sick month after month, dying one after
the other in a cancerous agony while he stood by helplessly in the
ruins of what had been their home.
_No!_ His mind warned him. _Don't think of that. Not that. Think of
Jason, Jason who prevents you from doing the one thing you want, who
is taking your life from you; Jason, the peerless leader; Jason, who's
afraid of the cities. Why? Why is he afraid of the cities? That's the
hub of everything down there. Why does Jason fear the cities?_
* * * * *
It wasn't until he finished connecting the satellite's last unit--the
sighting mechanism--that Tom realized the answer.
One answer. And everything fell into place.
Everything ... except what Tom Morris was going to do about it.
Tom squinted through the twin telescopes of the sighting mechanism
again, then pushed away and floated free, staring at the Earth bathed
in pale moonlight.
_What do I do now?_ For an instant he was close to panic, but he forced
it down. _Think_, he said to himself. _You're supposed to be a Homo
Sapiens ... use that brain. Think!_
The long night ended. The sun swung around from behind the bulk of
Earth. Tom looked at it as he felt its warmth penetrating the insulated
suit, and he knew it was the last time he would see the sun. He felt no
more anger--even his hatred of Jason was drained out of him now. In its
place was a sense of--finality.